Focus On Present Instead Of Obsessing Over The Future..

I want you to go back to New Year’s Day 2009 with me for a second. I’d recently left a job and was embarking upon a new career, one in which I was self-employed.

I pulled out all the stops and created a vision board that containedall of the things: how much money I wanted to earn, how I wanted to dress, where I wanted to vacation, how I wanted to eat, and everything else I could think of. I thought if I created this vision board, if I planned out exactly how things would go, somehow I’d find satisfaction and peace.

But, None of the stuff I was clinging to so tightly worked out. Life unfolded, all was well, but all that planning wasn’t making my life better; it was making it more stressful.

Every year, I’d come up with new goals, new dreams. Almost always they’d have something to do with controlling the way I ate, or how much money I made, or how to figure out the “right” career for me.

Even last year I bought a big old notebook, divided it into sections for each month, and wrote down goals. Big goals for the year, smaller goals for each month, all things designed to bring me the happiness I was seeking.

But this past year has changed me. I no longer try to plan far into a future I can’t predict, and I no longer expect outside circumstances to bring me internal pleasure.

I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I know pushing myself to visualize the life I wanted, over and over again, and obsessing about writing down my goals finally got to me. I finally got to a point where the last thing I wanted to do was think about those things.

I wanted something new. I wanted to meet each moment where it was and ask myself: What’s next? What should I do now?

I got out my notebook. I opened it, and I asked myself, “What can I do right now to feel better?” I don’t remember what the answer was, but I’m certain it was something along the lines of “take a deep breath” or “lie down” or “relax.”

In fact, that’s often the answer I get when I stop and ask what to do in the moment. It may seem weird—I mean, shouldn’t we be planning for our retirement? Maybe sometimes, but more often than not I believe stopping and realizing this is it, this is the moment to stop and breathe, this is the moment to chill out, is a better way to live, at least for me.

I feel happier and more settled this year, and I don’t have a resolution or goal in sight. Here’s how I’m approaching life nowadays: with the intention to stay in the moment and simply do the next right thing.

I didn’t come up with any resolutions for this year. Okay, I guess I have one, but it’s an intention, not a resolution: to remind myself to check in with the present moment rather than letting my mind go in circles trying to figure out what the future holds. Because that makes me feel worse, not better.

I committed to letting go of obsession. I’m still human—I still have things I hope to achieve, and I still have dreams for where my career might go, I still have lots of places in the world I want to visit. I’m not giving up; I’m just doing things differently.

I remind myself every single day to ask myself what’s next right now. Not what I should do next year, not what my five year plan should be—what I should do in a minute or two from now.

The way I do this is pretty simple: I either pause for a moment and see which thing seems like the most delightful thing to do next, or, if I’m in a stressed out place, I pause and write to myself.

I can hear the arguments now, though: You have to have a plan. You can’t always have fun!

Yes, I have dreams and a vision for the trajectory of my career. Yes, I think about my health. Yes, I have plans to travel this summer. But I think about those things when it’s time to think about them, like in the exact moment. I don’t need to worry about it, stress about it, and think about it at other times when I can’t do anything to change it.

By Jen picicci